Digitization project on Vlach culture in Greece

The Egnatia Epirus Foundation conducted with co-funding from the Greek State and the European Union a project for the preservation and promotion of the culture and history of the historical Vlach population groups in Epirus:

Materials like books, photographs, audio-visual materials and datasets from the foundation’s archive were indexed and digitized and are now available in the project’s digital library. A registration is obligatory for the user – which unfortunately limits the public access and reception of the materials – but however quickly accomplished. One may hope that projects like this will make the Vlachs/Aromanians respectively the Balkan Romance people better known to a general public: despite their geographically vast space of settlements these ethnic groups are barely known outside their Southeast European home countries.

The MinoRecs-Blog serves as communication infrastructure for librarians, archivists and humanities researchers who are involved or leading in the process of digitizing the cultural heritage of historical ethnical minorities. MinoRecs provides them with the possibility to present their projects, to announce scientific events, inform about new technologies, debate new strategies and to establish new networks of international collaboration. By raising awareness for the issue the blog also intends to reach out to policy makers and media representatives and sensibilize the public for the urgent need to take into account the right of an ethnical minority to have its cultural heritage transferred and preserved in the digital world.